


A Not So Restful Summer At The Beach

by padfootagain



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 05:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootagain/pseuds/padfootagain
Summary: A year has gone by since the almost-end of the world, and Crowley and Aziraphale both reckon that they deserve some vacations: a nice little summer at the beach. But Heaven and Hell seem to be unwilling to leave them have any peace, and this summer might turn from restful to dangerous very quickly…





	1. A Strange Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> There are two timelinges that I've separated with these ** instead of these --- to make things clearer for you all :) I hope you like it! Tell me what you think :)

“Where’s Crowley?”  
It’s a mere whisper. Voice hoarse drenched with tears. Red and swollen eyes. He can’t believe in the possibility and yet his body is already reacting to it as if it were all true. It can’t be, though. It just can’t be. The mere thought is unimaginable. The mere thought has his heart and soul both shattering in thousands of tiny fragments full of pain. The mere thought has his world crumbling. The mere thought has him losing faith in everything.  
In his hand the gun shakes. His finger loosely rests on the trigger. He points it at the angel before him.  
The ridicule of the situation hits him harder than a punch. Or well, not exactly ridicule but… the absurdity of it, at least. He’s an angel menacing another angel with a firearm. The world has gone utterly wrong.  
But then Crowley is not here. Crowley might never come back. Crowley is… might be…  
Of course the world has gone all wrong. His world, at the very least.  
“Where. Is. Crowley?”  
He repeats the words one last time. His jaw is clenched and he can’t how fast his heart beats. He decides then that it’s the angel’s last chance. If there is no other way to learn the truth, he will do it. Pull on the trigger.   
The shakiness in his voice is still strong but he can’t control it. He can’t control anything. As the tears form in his eyes again, the world turns all blur, until the angel before him almost disappears in the cloudy sky and the grey sea.  
“Aziraphale,” she tries to reason him, but she already knows she can’t change his mind. If he has taken the decision to discorporate her, he will. “Listen to me. We can still arrange everything.”  
“Arrange everything?!” Aziraphale replies with a voice so full of emotions: anger, astonishment, betrayal, pain… “There was nothing to arrange! We were just minding our own business, why couldn’t you leave us alone?”  
“Aziraphale, don’t do anything stupid.”  
“Where is Crowley? What have you done to him? Have you… Have you…”  
His lips tremble, and he can’t muster the words. He can’t let them pass his lips, form on his tongue, they taste too much of pain, their meaning is too terrible. He changes them for something still cruel, but that he could at least have a power upon. Words that give him hope, even if only a fool’s one. When he finally speaks again his voice is a little more high-pitched than usual.  
“Have you hurt him?”  
But he’s met with only silence for a long while. And when Bénédicte speaks again, it’s not to give him the answer he is looking for. He can see the perspiration on her forehead. He can see that she is frightened, but somehow, he knows she’s not scared enough to speak.  
“We both know you’re not going to pull that trigger. You’re still an angel. You’re still on our side. And Crowley is not. He’s a demon, Aziraphale. He’s not on your side, but I am. Now, give me the gun.”  
She extends her hand towards him, and he stares at it for a moment: black fingers that seem to be pointing at the gun, a little shaky, a little too perfectly shaped to be human.  
But he doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t make a gesture to give it to her.  
Instead, he looks up at her again. He can’t give her the gun. The only other option is to use it.  
In more than 6000 years, Aziraphale has never hurt a living creature. Never intentionally, at least. But then… then he asks himself a very important and yet simple question.  
What would he not to do for Crowley?  
And as he imagines Crowley’s body dissolving in Holy Water, as he hears his shout echoing through his heart and soul, as he imagines the look of pure terror in his beautiful eyes, the answer comes as obvious. It’s a very pure truth that will not falter, no matter the circumstances, no matter what is required of him.  
He can’t imagine anything he wouldn’t do to stop Crowley from being hurt. Not a single thing. Aziraphale would do anything necessary to save Crowley.  
The safety on the gun makes a little ‘click’ noise, and on the trigger, his finger is heavier and heavier. And Bénédicte sees the movement and can only wait for Aziraphale’s decision.  
He moves the gun across her abdomen, from her heart to her stomach and to her shoulder and to her arm…  
He has never in his life used a firearm and would have never imagined he would. But then, he reckons that he had always imagined that Crowley would be there to get him out of trouble if need be. But not today.  
Today feels unreal. Today looks like a day where pigs could fly and the world could be ending, and Crowley could be gone forever. Today is for unrealistic things. He guesses that shooting at another angel fits perfectly in this theme.  
Aziraphale’s tears are more powerful again and his hand shakes a little bit more, but the decision is taken and there is no going back.  
And on the trigger, Aziraphale’s finger gently presses more and more until the shot is fired.  
**************************************************  
A few days before  
“Sit down, Angel. Stop pacing and just… sit down. You’re making me nervous.”  
“What if… you’ve felt there was a change too!”  
“There was a tiny tremor. That’s all it is.”  
“We should be with Adam… what if they try to hurt the poor boy?”  
“He’ll be fine! Why would they try to hurt him? He was the antichrist, but now he’s just a normal kid. Or well, almost normal… normal enough… He’s not a threat to anyone.”  
“Still… I would feel much better if I was sure he’s okay,” Aziraphale argued, finally sitting down again instead of pacing through the aisle of the train, and several people stopped looking at him with an eyeroll that meant 'this man must be crazy or something’.  
“Aziraphale, we’ve made sure he would be safe. We have. He’s with his family, in his house that we have secured against both demonic and angelic attacks. Nothing’s gonna happen to him. And we need a break. We deserve one after 6000 years of loyal service and a full year of treason.”  
“Oh… no need to use this disgusting word, Crowley.”  
Aziraphale took the mobile phone Adam and his friends had insisted he’d buy. If the angel had never been much interested in technology, he was glad to admit that this particular device was very useful. Crowley had been surprised at how fast Aziraphale had mastered all its functionalities… or at least, for the most part.  
By the window of the train, the green English landscapes were passing by in a blur. The soft movement of the train shook them both from time and were starting to lull Crowley to sleep, his eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.  
“We could have come here with the Bentley,” Crowley complained out of the blue.  
“The point was to be discreet. Your car might be highly stylish, it lacks the discreet element of this trip,” Aziraphale replied, his eyes still fixed on his phone.  
But there was a frown on his angelic features, and he was soon moving the phone around him, first placing it towards the window, then the aisle, then above his head and finally extending his arm towards Crowley.  
“Oh… no…” he said with an adorable disappointed pout. “No signal…”  
“Who did you want to call anyway, Angel? Oh no… not Adam again, let the kid breathe! He lived without us for 11 years, he can live two weeks more on his own!”  
“It’s not that, Crowley. I’m worried about this… ripple we’re both feeling. We should warn him about it. Tell him to be extra-careful…”  
The angel’s face suddenly illuminated from within as a bright idea passed through his mind.  
“I can send him a mail instead of calling him. That will be much more efficient. And I love sending mails…”  
“Text. Through a phone, you send a text,” Crowley corrected him with a half amused, half annoyed tone by which Aziraphale was not fooled at all, and a mischievous smile formed on his lips.  
“Well, whatever you say. Anyway, I could send him a text. To tell him to be careful.”  
“Well, do it then.”  
“But I can’t! I don’t any signal.”  
Aziraphale gave Crowley these baby eyes that the demon -although he would never admit it out loud- adored, and to which he could never resist…  
The demon heaved a sigh, a smile tugging at his lips.  
“Alright. There you go. Send your text and then no more miracles.”  
Crowley sat a little straighter on his seat, and snapped his fingers. A mere second was needed for all the little bars on Aziraphale’s phone to appear.  
“Oh! Thank you,” he smiled to his friend, his eyes oozing tenderness.  
Which made Crowley smile and his heart beat a little faster than usual. He didn’t reply, and merely gave his angel a soft look.  
Aziraphale kept his promise and wrote his text for the boy.  
Dear Adam,  
Crowley and I have had a rather unsettling and strange feeling these past few days. We are not sure yet if this comes from either of our sides, but we would recommend you to be particularly careful.  
See you soon,  
Aziraphale.  
“You don’t need to sign these, you know?” Crowley reminded the angel just as he finished tapping his name.   
“Yes, but I like doing it that way,” Aziraphale replied. “It feels more personal, warmer, somehow…”  
Crowley tried to roll his eyes, but instead gave Aziraphale one of these you-are-too-adorable-how-can-you-even-be-real looks, making the angel blush ever so slightly.  
“But we are supposed to start by ‘Dear Adam’ or… 'Dear Crowley’… right?” Aziraphale asked with a questioning look painted all over his face.  
“I suppose so,” Crowley shrugged.  
“Adam never starts his texts that way… he just straight up blurts out a 'hi’. It feels very impersonal.”  
“He’s a twelve-year-old kid and the former antichrist, I’m not sure we can so much rely on him to understand human behaviour.”  
“You’re right… do you think he’s reaching… adolescence already?” The angel carefully asked.  
“Nah… this thing is later on, isn’t it?”  
“I have never quite managed to define a precise age…”  
“He’s not reaching that yet. Don’t worry, angel.”  
“I hope not. We’re barely finding back a rhythm since… all of it… I am not ready to face a second Armageddon.”  
Crowley chuckled in response, but the saddened expression on his friend’s face did not escape his watch. There was no need to acknowledge the pain, nor talk about the memories though. Armageddon and the trials that had followed had left a weight on both their shoulders, but even more so on Aziraphale. His trust on his side had been shattered into pieces, if he wasn’t fallen, he was out of Heaven all the same. He could never go back, even of his wings would keep their white shades. He might stay an angel, and maybe more so than most of those in heaven, but he would never again go home.   
He never talked about it, at least not with words and sentences and not even with tears, but with distant stares set upon nothing, with longer silences than he used to let slip, through the melancholia that now coloured his features when he lost himself in his thought. For the rest, he was still the kind, selfless and with just a hint of a bastard, as Aziraphale had always been. But Crowley knew him enough to spot the signs. And moreover, he knew enough of the pain of being chased from home that his friend was going through now. He had been chased out of heaven, and now also from hell. Although, Crowley had to admit that his exile from hell came more as a relief than anything else. He wasn’t upset at all at the idea of remaining on Earth forever, as long as he had the right company…  
Aziraphale’s phone vibrated and rang a merry little tune as Adam’s answer was received, and all traces of sadness disappeared from Aziraphale’s features as he read the text, a shy glint of excitement passing through his eyes.  
“He says he’s fine, and he will be extra-careful. He says Anathema came to visit yesterday, how lovely! And he wishes us some good holidays at the beach.”  
He let out a content sigh.  
“It will be lovely, indeed, I am sure of it.”  
“We could have gone to a better spot though…”  
“Brighton is considered like a very famous place for the summer,” Aziraphale argued.  
“I was thinking more about Hawaii, Ibiza, Italy, the reefs of Australia…”  
“But I’ve never been to Brighton…”  
Aziraphale’s voice was almost a whisper, his tone apologetic. Crowley gave him a reassuring smile.  
“I know, Angel. It’s alright, I guess. Next time, I’ll pick up the destination though.”  
They exchanged a smile that could only be described as tender, before simultaneously setting their gaze on the countryside passing by so fast.  
————————————————————-  
Brighton in the summer was full of life, sun and ice creams. Aziraphale loved it. He was sitting on the beach, playing with a handful of little pebbles and eating a strawberry ice cream, watching the children play in the water and on the beach, a happy smile on his face. Wearing a pair of beige shorts, white shirt and a straw hat, Aziraphale was a fair contrast with Crowley’s form splayed on the beach as he drank in the sun, only wearing his sunglasses and swimsuit. A few meters away, a baby started to cry. A couple passed before the two friends, hand in hand, laughing.  
Crowley quickly miracled the baby to stop crying, acting as discreetly as he could to avoid Aziraphale noticing.  
“I must admit that this idea of yours was absolutely brilliant, Crowley,” Aziraphale nodded in appreciation, giving the demon lying by his side a tender smile. “We did need some vacations.”  
“I knew you would like it,” the demon replied without trying to hide his smile.  
“I could get used to living like this. No missions from heaven, no soul to save, no destiny to balance… just… being there and looking at the world and living our lives.”  
The look Crowley gave him was both soft and a little sad. Longing. He moved his fingers a little closer to the angel’s hand, but didn’t reach for it. Instead, he played absentmindedly with a few pebbles too.  
“Yeah… I could get used to that too.”  
“Wait! We must try sun cream!” Aziraphale wiggled a little with excitement as the idea passed through his mind and Crowley couldn’t help but to be both amused and fond of the angel’s excitement.  
Aziraphale took out of his bag a bottle of sunscreen and started to apply it on his arms, finding it very funny.  
“That was an invention from heaven, right?” Crowley asked, discreetly glancing at Aziraphale while he applied way more cream than needed on his right arm.  
Crowley had not spoken of ‘their sides’ since the trials (or the lack of it). Instead, he used 'Heaven’ and 'Hell’ now. It had been a while since it didn’t really make sense to him to do so anyway, but after the trials, the separation between him and both hell and heaven was thorough. The long process was completed the second Gabriel had told the person he loved most in this universe to 'just die already.’  
Shut your stupid mouth and just die already.  
The words still echoed through his bones every time he thought about that day, and every time the desire to strangle the archangel with his bare hands came rising through him.  
He focused on Aziraphale again, who was now putting some cream on his face, white traces remaining on his nose making the demon smile the most tender smile. How could anyone who claimed to be good and serve the will of god want to hurt someone like Aziraphale? It made no sense… But then, Crowley reckoned that his vision of his best friend was rather biased.  
Aziraphale though was still talking in terms of 'my side’ and 'your side’. He acted like it was just a habit he couldn’t get rid of, but the roots went deeper than this explanation. It was a way to connect to something he had lost. And even if he did not regret the choices he had made, if he had come to accept that heaven was not what he had thought it was all his life, if he was more often than not happy to live on Earth, he was still an angel, and Heaven, no matter how blank and cold and impersonal this place felt, was still his home. He knew he didn’t belong there anymore, and yet he still yearned for the comforting faith that he was doing everything he did to reach something good, that he was doing the right thing, that every step he took and every decision he made would one day lead to a world that was a little brighter, because he had been there. Questioning heaven had meant questioning what he had done all these years too, and looking back, there were times when he had accepted orders given to him and carried them out without fighting back, and he regretted it. He regretted not having saved the people he could have helped simply because it was part of God’s plan.  
In contradiction with those regrets, he still believed in Her plan. He believed it would lead to something beautiful and happy and imperfect in the perfect sense of the word. His faith in God was still there, but his faith in Heaven and its system had been destroyed with the world almost dying.  
“Of course. Your side pierced holes in the ozone… We had to come up with something.”  
“I’m not even surprised that the only thing they would think of in retaliation in the ozone breaking up there was 'let’s cover the humans with some white sticky cream’.”  
“You should try it, it’s fun!”  
“It’s not fun. And I’m not trying it.”  
“Oh, Crowley, please…”  
“No way.”  
Aziraphale gave up, closing the bottle and reached for his bag, but Crowley heaved a desperate (and quite dramatic) sigh before the angel could reach the blue bag, and took the bottle from him.  
“This is ridiculous.”  
He did put some sunscreen on anyway, and had to admit that it was rather… fun… He covered his torso and arms and legs and face, before handing the angel the bottle again.  
“Here, are you happy now?”  
“You have to put some everywhere.”  
“I have.”  
“Not on your back.”  
Crowley could see that he had not realized the implications of what he was saying, so slowly, with a careful tone, Crowley replied.  
“I can’t miracle it, Angel. That would not be very discreet on a beach, and I can’t reach my back.”  
Aziraphale’s stare was more intense for a moment, he struggled to swallow, his Adam’s apple trembling, before he nodded, blush creeping up on his cheeks covered with white sunscreen.  
“Of course,” he mumbled.  
He took the bottle, his eyes still fixed on Crowley’s, and for a second, the demon thought that Aziraphale would say something. Say something about… sunscreen on his back… something he could barely turn into full thoughts without blushing and having his heart exploding. And for a moment, the thought lingered in Aziraphale for real as he guessed the strange shape of his friend’s eyes beyond the dark sunglasses. Strange… he had never liked this adjective to describe Crowley’s eyes. Beautiful had always been something closer to what he really wanted to express.  
But he didn’t speak. Instead, he put the bottle back in his bag this time.  
Crowley lied back down on the pebbles and broke the uncomfortable silence with a joke.  
“Anyway, I’m lying on my back here for the rest of the day, so it doesn’t matter.”  
“For the whole day?”  
“Why not? It feels good. Relaxing. You should try too. Lie down, Angel.”  
Aziraphale complied, lying on his back on his towel by Crowley’s, and he had to admit that the feeling of the salty wind blowing on his face and hair mingling with the warmth of the sun kissing his cheeks and the happy sounds of the beach embracing him all made a lovely feeling grow in his heart. The place was so full of love and happiness, and he could feel it all.  
“It does feel good.”  
Crowley hummed in agreement, but soon frowned.  
There was something off. A strange feeling, something… something was amiss. Something was wrong. What was it? He wasn’t sure. But there was something wrong with the world in Brighton right now. Something dark moved the city.  
It was just a distant feeling, most like a distant shout through a loud crowd that one can guess and yet not truly hear. He couldn’t pinpoint where it came from or what it was, but he knew it was there all the same.  
He sat up in a jolt, trying to feel, to smell, to see, to identify by any mean necessary what was happening. But the beach around him was still the same. Still full of sun, and life and ice creams…  
The feeling faded a little, just as Aziraphale was looking up at the demon, worried.  
“Crowley? Is there something wrong, dear?”  
“Did you… did you feel that?”  
“I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Not more than this past week.”  
Crowley slowly nodded, the feeling disappearing, and he lied back down.  
“Oh, it must be nothing, then. Don’t worry about it.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Yes, I’m fine.”  
They both turned back their attention towards the sun, closing their eyes and letting its warmth run through their bodies. But it seemed that sometimes, the sun was warmer, and sometimes colder, it was a strange change in its heat, as if a cloud passed before the star and blocked its light.  
However, there were no clouds in the sky that afternoon above Brighton.  
———————————————————-  
Even Crowley would have easily admitted that the view from the restaurant was nice. The sun blazing its last rays of burning light upon the blue of the sea, painting the world in gold and red and purple in a strange spiral mirrored by the sea. The seagulls cried now and then, the salty wind blew through the town and dishevelled a little the demon’s and his angel’s hair as they ate dinner. Or well, Aziraphale ate, but Crowley had since long finished his oysters. Not that he minded sitting there in the lovely evening while Aziraphale ate. It was always pleasant to share a dinner with the angel.  
“These oysters are delicious,” Aziraphale said for at least the fifth time. “Are you sure you don’t want one more?”  
“No, thank you Angel, I’m fine. You can eat the rest.”  
“I’m glad you chose the hotel, it’s a lovely place.”  
“We’ve only been there for like… five minutes,” Crowley frowned. “We dropped our bags and went to the beach.”  
“It seemed very nice nonetheless. And I understand now that you had to miracle our free rooms.”  
“My treat.”  
The angel paused for a few seconds.  
“It was thoughtful of you to book two rooms next to each other.”  
“Well… it would have been pretty stupid to book them at opposite sides of the building,” Crowley carefully answered.  
“Of course.”  
“Of course.”  
It was more than time to change the subject, at least so reckoned Aziraphale, and he took a moment to find a new subject to discuss.  
Aziraphale breathed in the sea air, salty, a touch of the scent of seaweeds, warm sun and he could already guess the faint scent of the stars that were yet to appear in the sky for the night. But then he caught the perfume of something else. Something both foreign and familiar, and he couldn’t really explain what it was, at least at the beginning.  
He vaguely heard Crowley speaking, but didn’t pay any attention to him. Instead, he kept on breathing in and out the air, focusing on this strange fragrance. It smelled both warm and empty, quite… pure in a way, but a little bit in a… an antiseptic way. Too clean. Too empty. Warm but cold as well.  
And finally, he realized what it was. It was the smell of…  
Crowley merely looked at him with raised eyebrows as Aziraphale jumped to his feet.  
“Crowley… I think there’s a problem.”  
“A problem? What is it?”  
“I… I’m quite sure that I’ve smelled something… something that… felt like… Heaven.”


	2. The Calm Before The Storm

“Sunscreen was a terrible idea. Hell, I could have invented this one! This is so annoying!”  
But Aziraphale didn’t answer. Instead, he kept on blankly staring at the wall opposite him.  
They had hurried the end of their dinner after the angel had sensed someone, or something, coming from Heaven nearby. They had gone back to their hotel instead, and were now both in Crowley’s room. The door between their two bedrooms had been left open, and the demon reckoned it would not be closed for as long as their stay might be. The thought made him both happy and nervous. They had lived under the same roof in Tadfield for a while, but this open door turned the whole situation into one bedroom and two beds. Which was, all in all, quite different from the two bedrooms that had been first planned. And there were things Crowley was still afraid to show his friend.  
Crowley focused on Aziraphale again. The angel seemed more than worried and deep in thought. His blank blue eyes seemed focus on nothing, his body slumped as he sat on the edge of the demon’s bed a vivid contrast with the way he always sat so straight. The demon slowly approached his best friend, and sat down next to him.  
“It might be nothing, angel,” he tried to reassure Aziraphale, who merely frowned in response, his gaze still lost in the void before him.  
“It might be everything we feared,” he shot back.  
“Are you sure there was something?”  
“I’m sure. I could feel it, Crowley. And whatever they were, they were close…”  
“Maybe they’re not here for us.”  
“Do you think so?”  
Finally, Aziraphale looked at him with his full of hope. A fool’s hope, Crowley recognized the shimmer. And maybe it wasn’t a good thing to try to reassure the angel after all.  
Crowley heaved a sigh.  
“If it comes to that, we could still leave Earth. I’d miss it, but if there’s no other way…”  
“You’re going to talk about Alpha Centauri again, aren’t you?” Aziraphale interrupted him, a tender smile on his lips.  
“It’s a lovely place,” Crowley shrugged.  
“But it’s not home.”  
Crowley intensely stared at his best friend. He could have told him how he truly felt. That if he loved living on Earth, if he cared for humans, anywhere he was with Aziraphale was his home.  
He kept the truth for himself for now though.  
“We knew this day would come, angel.”  
“I don’t know what to do, Crowley,” Aziraphale shook his head.  
Around the blanket and the edge of the mattress, the angel’s fits tightened. He seemed ready to cry.  
“We can’t run away forever, Crowley,” he went on. “But we can’t fight back either. Two against Heaven and Hell combined, we don’t stand a chance.”  
The demon looked for the right words to speak, but for a couple of minutes, he couldn’t find anything to say.  
“We don’t even know what they have sent yet. We can’t plan what to do as long as we’re in the dark.”  
“What if they sent someone in Tadfield too… what if Adam…”  
“The boy’s just fine, angel,” Crowley interrupted him with an annoyed gesture of the hand. “He’s not the anti-christ anymore, they’ll leave him alone.”  
“How can you be sure? We shouldn’t have left.”  
Something in Crowley broke, a crack that drew deeper, wider. A wound that bled a little more in his chest. Because this didn’t sound like fear of demons’ and angels’ wrath. This sounded like Aziraphale pushing Crowley away again.  
He hadn’t done so the previous year. He had been the one offering that they would share a house a Tadfield. And Crowley had been careful at taking baby steps all the way. But Aziraphale had welcomed all his offers with a bright smile, which was a wonderful change, of course. And the angel had offered dinners as well, they even had picnics now and then. The words the angel had spoken decades before in his Bentley still echoed in Crowley’s very soul and still distilled the same amount of pain as they repeated in his head again and again.  
You go too fast for me, Crowley.  
He had waited 6000 years, and he wasn’t even bitter about it. Aziraphale had not doubted Heaven and Hell like Crowley had. He had respected rules and had been led by them for a long time. And moreover, these things were not the kind to be controlled. Crowley had expected nothing but friendship for millenia, and he would still be content with having Aziraphale as a friend now. But no matter how their relationship had been, he had thought this past year that it would evolve. Was Aziraphale insisting to go back to Tadfield because he was taking a step backwards? Was it all there was to it? Crowley had sensed that something was wrong as well, but he couldn’t have told if it was a mere feeling or a real threat. He had not felt a presence though. And when Aziraphale had felt something, he hadn’t. Was it normal? He could always feel Aziraphale’s presence, but he had been able to do so for as long as he could remember. Did he feel Aziraphale’s aura simply because he was an angel, or because of how Crowley felt for him?  
Then… had Aziraphale lied to find an excuse to stop their holidays and go back to Tadfield?  
The very thought was breaking Crowley’s heart. Was he going too fast again?  
He struggled to swallow back the lump in his throat, and forced a gentle tone for his voice, although a hint of pain could still be heard, if one paid enough attention.  
“If you feel like we should, we can go back to Tadfield.”  
Aziraphale heaved a sigh.  
“I don’t know what we should do, Crowley. I’m worried for Adam. But… I’m sure you’re right and he’s safe.”  
Crowley clenched his jaw, struggling to let out the words as they hurt him so deeply.  
“If you don’t think this vacation is a good idea anymore, we can leave.”  
Aziraphale stared at Crowley, finally reading in depth his expression, and his own features saddened and softened, as he recognized the demon’s worry.  
“Oh, Crowley…”  
He gave him a tender smile, before slowly raising his hands to the demon’s face. He gently held his black glasses, and Crowley stiffened at the gesture, but let the angel take them off anyway. They stared at each other for a moment, blue eyes meeting golden ones, and there was so much love oozing from Aziraphale, even Crowley could feel it. Or at least, he assumed it was love. It was tender and warm and comforting and deep and it made him feel valued and safe. But then he was a demon, and he didn’t really know how it felt to be loved. He knew how it felt to love someone though, and he reckoned that the feelings were similar, but could he be certain? He realized it didn’t matter. If it wasn’t love, he didn’t even mind. It was such a good feeling all the same.  
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale breathed. “I’m just worried. You’ve planned everything so well, and I’m being such a killjoy right now. And if I’m worried about Adam and wonder if we should go back… it’s just because I’m worried. I don’t want to go back. I… I haven’t changed my mind about this, dear.”  
Crowley’s sorrow turned into relief, and a grin slowly formed on his features. For the second time that day, he almost moved his hand to touch Aziraphale’s, but didn’t.  
“I think we should wait and see,” Crowley spoke again. “We have to be careful, but we can’t take any decision while we don’t even know what we are up against.”  
Aziraphale nodded.  
“Alright then.”  
“Good. Now that we agree on what to do next, I’m off for a shower. This sunscreen thing is so sticky! Argh! I’m never doing this again.”  
Aziraphale couldn’t refrain an amused chuckle as the demon stood up and headed for the bathroom.  
————————————————————-  
The evening went on uneventful. And the night grew dark and then brighter again, shadows settling down upon the world and then being hunted down by the first rays of sunlight. Nor Crowley nor Aziraphale slept well that night, too much worry twirling in their troubled minds. But with dawn came a new wave of peace. If nothing had happened in the darkest hours of the night, then perhaps the world could give them one more day in the sun.  
They took their breakfast together. Tea and toasts and marmalade, in the garden behind the little hotel. The young sun licked the rooftops till they shone, and in its warmth, the two friends couldn’t help but forget the dangers they may have yet to face.  
Aziraphale looked through a tourist guide he had bought a few days before their trip, looking for places to see and things to do. Meanwhile, Crowley was sipping on his honeyed tea, slumped upon his chair, looking at the sparrows flying across the bushes and trees, his newspaper resting on his laps.  
“Alright, we could either go to the fair, or to this observation tower,” Aziraphale proposed. “I would love to go to the aquarium too.”  
“It’s very hot today,” Crowley pointed out. “Aquarium sounds good.”  
Aziraphale gave him an excited smile.  
“Wonderful!”  
His gaze grew a little bit more worried, as he asked the question that had been burning his tongue.  
“Have you noticed anything strange since yesterday?” he asked in a whisper, discreetly glimpsing around him in search for anyone who could be listening to their conversation.  
“Nothing. You?”  
Aziraphale shook his head.  
The angel opened his mouth to speak, but thought better. Because right at that moment, the sun was warm and bright in the sky, the garden was peaceful and filled only with the morning breeze and families laughing. The birds sang in the trees about stories long forgotten even by him, and the bees were already busy with flying from flower to flower. And in front of him, Crowley was sipping his tea and reading the Infernal Times – that he kept on receiving for some reason, and as he liked the newspaper, he didn’t try to unsubscribe – wearing his dark sunglasses, but as they had just enough slipped down the length of his nose, Aziraphale could still see the golden orbs travelling back and forth from left to right on the page. The sun was getting caught in his hair, setting the red lock ablaze. He seemed peaceful, like everything would be alright, and Aziraphale wanted to believe so as well, even if just for a moment.  
So instead of speaking again, he took a sip of his tea, his eyes never leaving Crowley’s features bathed in the morning sunlight, and he pushed away all thoughts. Because maybe, just maybe, they could be okay for one more day.  
————————————————————–  
Crowley just couldn’t help it. He tried, he tried so hard to stop the feeling from spreading through his entire body, through every fibre of his being. He was trying so hard not to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. He had been unable to control this feeling for 6000 years after all, why should it suddenly change in the Sea Life of Brighton?  
As he looked at Aziraphale with the stupidest of grins on his face and eyes round with wonder, watching the colourful jellyfish drifting through the water, his face lit up by the bluish light, Crowley just couldn’t refrain the tidal wave of affection that washed over him. Aziraphale really was the stupidest, most loveable being he had ever encountered. How could Crowley’s heart stand a chance?  
“I have to admit that I have always loved these ones.” Aziraphale grinned, turning to Crowley.  
“They can’t even swim, Angel,” Crowley replied.  
“But they’re so graceful. They’re slow… don’t you think it’s lovely? That at least one thing is still going slowly these days, when the entire world is speeding up?”  
“I guess… They’re still pretty much useless.”  
“Everything doesn’t have to have a purpose in life, Crowley. That’s the beauty of these kind of animals.”  
“I’m not even sure they have a brain…”  
“You’re purposefully missing the point.”  
“I’m not.”  
“Don’t you think they’re beautiful?”  
Crowley, heaved a sigh.  
“They are rather… graceful,” he admitted, making Aziraphale’s grin widen.  
“See? I knew you liked them. But which are you favourite?”  
“I thought you had to love every creature…” Crowley raised a surprised eyebrow.  
“Oh, I do!” Aziraphale replied with a frown, almost offended. “But the fact that I love all of God’s creatures doesn’t mean that I have no preferences.”  
“Really?” Crowley kept on teasing, and Aziraphale kept on falling for it.  
Or well, actually, the angel knew perfectly what game the demon was playing at, but let’s say that he didn’t dislike these teasing arguments with Crowley, so why not play along?  
“Well, of course. I prefer jellyfish to… frogs. And I prefer cocoa to coffee. And books are one of my favourite things ever. You see?”  
Crowley’s amused smile slightly diminished as he leaned against the glass of the tank, staring at Aziraphale. In the dim light, his dark glasses were perfectly hiding his eyes, and the angel wished he could see them to try and read through them.  
“I see… I wish…”  
But he stopped mid-sentence. How could he tell Aziraphale that he wished he could have different ways to love too? That he hoped Aziraphale had different kinds of love. Because he didn’t want to be loved the same way the angel loved jellyfish or cocoa. But from what he could remember from his time as an angel, there was only this one kind of love that surrounded all things. A massive bubble everything could fit into. Was it really all that there was? Or did he remember this feeling simply because, at the time of his fall, he had not encountered anything that would call for another kind of love yet?  
He pushed the thought away. It wasn’t the moment to get into a heart to heart discussion with the angel. He just wanted to spend a nice time with his best friend, that was all.  
“I wish you could prefer frogs to jellyfish. At least they have brains, angel. They even can jump, and do that weird ‘croak croak’ sound. Do you know what a jellyfish can do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”  
Aziraphale’s glance grew tender as it lingered on Crowley’s features. He was about to propose that they move on to see the seahorses, when Crowley’s entire body tensed up.  
The feeling was strong and there was no way the demon could be wrong about it. He hadn’t felt anything similar since the almost-end of the world, the last time he had been near another demon…  
The change in his expression gave his fear away before he could speak, and Aziraphale grew anxious as well.  
“What’s wrong?” the angel asked in a whisper.  
But instead of answering, Crowley merely grabbed Aziraphale by the arm and dragged him down the hall, passing before the fish without paying any attention to them, nor to the children that excitedly ran about, nor to their parents chasing after them. All he was focused upon was this feeling of a demon being near and this fear tightening his heart to the point that he wasn’t sure it was beating anymore, that this demon could reach Aziraphale and hurt him.  
“Crowley, you have to tell me what’s going on.”  
The demon snapped his fingers, and at the next turn, they stepped into the deserted ocean tunnel.  
Above their heads, a shark and a turtle lazily swam though the water set all around them. On each side of the glass walls, coral and sea anemones coloured the scenery. Groups of fish swam quickly to and fro. And under any other circumstances, Aziraphale would have loved the view. But all he could think of for now was a) whatever was scaring Crowley so much and b) the sensation of Crowley’s hand wrapped around his arm in a firm grip, and yet not tight enough to hurt him, just enough to make sure the angel would follow him.  
“Crowley?” the angel insisted. “What’s going on?”  
The demon finally stopped and turned towards Aziraphale.  
“I… I think there might be… a demon in the building.”  
Aziraphale’s eyes grew round.  
“Are you sure?”  
“Pretty much, yeah,” Crowley answered with a wince, releasing his hold on the angel’s arm.  
“We need to get out.”  
“We can’t. They would see us.”  
“What do we do then?”  
Crowley took a moment before answering, passing a hand through his hair.  
“I’m thinking about that…”  
“Crowley!”  
“Well, any idea is welcomed, angel!”  
“You’re the demon here, you know better than me how they’re going to ac…”  
But Crowley shushed him, pressing his palm against the angel’s mouth. He seemed to be focusing hard, and so Aziraphale didn’t dare to move. Indeed, Crowley was trying to focus on this feeling, this sensation moving around him. It seemed it was becoming more and more intense though… like a ripple slowly approaching the shore.  
“They’re coming closer.”  
Crowley turned to Aziraphale again, and suddenly realized that his hand was still pressed against the angel’s soft lips. He took his hand away in a hurry, as if the contact had been burning him, while he tried to stop his heart from beating so fast.  
He cleared his throat, trying to refrain his blush, although he knew that he was failing. He was almost certain that Aziraphale was blushing too though, and the thought reassured him.  
“They’re coming. There’s no way out,” Crowley let out in a low breath, his voice deeper than usual.  
They stared at each other for a moment, silence filling up the space between them, the light distorted through the water above them drawing strange lines on their silhouettes, and fish and sharks and turtles still swimming as if nothing wrong was happening, oblivious of the fear that shook the two friends under them.  
“Crowley I…”  
“I can hold them back,” Crowley interrupted him. “You make a run for it.”  
“What…? Crowley, don’t be ridiculous.”  
“I can’t be burnt, and they think holy water has no effect on me, they won’t kill me.”  
“They could.”  
“They have bigger chances of killing you than killing me, angel. Just… go. Go!”  
“Never! Do you really think that I would leave you behind?”  
Crowley let out a frustrated cry, burying his face in his hands.  
“Why do you have to be such a… a… an angel!? It’s not the time to be the selfless being of love right now!”  
But Aziraphale shook his head, taking a step closer to Crowley.  
“It has nothing to do with me being an angel,” he replied, his tone soft but firm all the same, and Crowley knew that he could not change his friend’s mind. “I will not leave you behind to face danger alone, Crowley! I will not! Never! Do you hear me? I could never leave you behind. Of all people, certainly not you.”  
Crowley’s lips parted a little, the expression on his features changing from frustration and fear to something fragile, something softer and usually hidden. He almost started as Aziraphale took his hand in his.  
“If there is a danger to face, then we will face it together, dear,” Aziraphale whispered with a warm smile curling up his lips.  
“Angel…”  
His voice broke before he could finish to speak. But Crowley reckoned that there wasn’t really any need for words, actually. Instead, he could simply hold Aziraphale’s hand in his too, give it a tender squeeze, enjoy the feeling of Aziraphale’s skin upon his, how his warmth ran through his fingers… and maybe that gesture, and the way Aziraphale looked at Crowley, and how Crowley looked at Aziraphale, was enough to say it all.  
Footsteps broke the holy silent that had settled around them, and they both knew what was coming, although they both chose to not turn towards it just yet, stealing a few more seconds staring at each other and silently saying everything that mattered instead. Oh, but they knew what was coming towards them all the same…  
A demon.


End file.
